Into the Still Blue (Under the Never Sky, #3)(42)

Until that moment, she hadn’t been afraid of him. Now she realized how naive she’d been. Loran had shown unusual interest in her the first time he’d seen her. She’d been aware of him because she’d sensed his awareness of her. She looked from the door to him, fear turning her to stone and rendering her mute.

Loran cursed at her reaction. “Skies! No.” He grabbed her arm, lowering his voice. “Keep your mouth shut and don’t utter a word about this to anyone. Not a word, Aria. Understand?”

Then he shoved her into the room.

Where she found Perry.

He lay on a narrow cot on his side, asleep or unconscious. Bare, except for a sheet pulled up to his waist. White towels were piled on the floor by the cot. Even in the dim light, she could tell they were stained with blood.

Her legs wobbled as she moved closer, overcome by numbness as she took in his condition.

His arms had always been sculpted with muscle. Now they were bloated. Swollen with purple and red marks that covered his skin. They spread over his chest and stomach. Over nearly every inch of him.

In all her life, her heart had never hurt like this.

Never.

Loran spoke quietly at her side. “I considered warning you. I couldn’t decide if it would have helped or made it more difficult. He’s expected to make a full recovery. The doctors have said so.”

She turned on him, rage igniting in every cell in her body. “Did you do this?”

“No,” he said, reeling back. “I didn’t.” He moved to the door. “You have ten minutes. Not a second longer.”

When he left, Aria knelt by the bed. Her gaze went to Perry’s hands, and she had to swallow the bile that crept up her throat.

She’d always loved his hands. The way each knuckle was shaped, solid and strong, like iron held him together instead of bone. Now she saw nothing but swollen flesh. His skin was unnaturally smooth, the contours of his joints gone, the lines that made him beyond recognition.

Strangely, his face had been left untouched. His lips were chapped, and the scruff on his jaw seemed darker against the paleness of his skin, brown instead of blond.

His nose was perfectly, normally, beautifully crooked.

She leaned close, afraid to touch him, but needing to be near. “Perry . . .,” she whispered.

His eyes opened. He blinked at her slowly. “Is it you?”

She swallowed. “Yes . . . it’s me.”

He looked to the door and back, then began to rise. “How did you—” He froze and made a sound deep in his throat like he was holding back a cough.

“Stay still.” Carefully, she lay down beside him. There was just enough room for both of them on the small cot. She ached with the desire to hold him, but this was as close as she’d let herself be.

She stared into his eyes, seeing deep shadows that had never been there before. His eyes drifted shut like he was trying to hide them, almost closing. His eyelashes were dark at the roots and almost white at the tips.

With only his face in sight, she could almost imagine he wasn’t hurt. That they weren’t imprisoned here. She could almost put herself back to when they’d traveled to Bliss in search of her mother.

They’d spent their nights this way, close, trading hours of sleep in favor of talking and kissing. Sacrificing the rest they needed for just another minute together.

Her eyes began to blur. She didn’t know how to handle this.

Perry spoke first. “I don’t want you to see me this way. . . . Can you pull the sheet up?”

She reached for it. Her hand settled on his ribs instead. He tensed beneath her fingers, but it couldn’t have been from pain; she was barely touching him.

“I can’t,” she said.

“You can. I know that’s your healthy hand.”

“I don’t want to.”

“This is hurting you. I know it is.”

He was right, she was in agony, but she wouldn’t let him endure this by himself.

“I can’t because I don’t want you to hide from me.”

He pressed his lips together, the muscles in his jaw flexing.

Shame. That’s what she saw in the shadows in his eyes. In the tears that pooled there.

He closed them. “You’re so stubborn.”

“I know.”

He fell quiet. Too quiet, she realized, as the seconds passed. He was holding his breath.

“It wasn’t a fair fight,” he said. “Otherwise I would have won.”

“I know,” she said.

“You know a lot.”

He was struggling to make light of this. But how could he? She moved her hand over the ridges of his ribs. Beautiful skin, marred by bruises.

“I don’t know enough. I don’t know how to make this better.” Anger swelled inside her, the pressure increasing in her chest. In her heart. It mounted with every bruise she drifted over. “Only a monster could do this.”

Perry’s eyes fluttered open. “Don’t think about him.”

“How can I not? How can you not?”

“You’re here. I only want to think about you right now.”

Aria bit back the words she wanted to speak. Tell me you’re furious. She wanted to hear him rage. She wanted to see a hint of the fire that always seemed to burn inside him. After this—after what he’d been through—would he ever be the same?